Roscoe regarded him. Her expression betrayed nothing. She nodded, turned and was on her way. Only then did her face crack into a big smile.
Henry, on the other hand, having extended the olive branch of peace was gobsmacked by her non-reaction. ‘Ignorant cow,’ he muttered, then put her out of his mind, veered right into the custody office.
It had become fairly busy. A normal, early hours Tuesday morning in the Blackpool cells. Full of drunks, thieves, wife-beaters — although husband-beaters were in the ascendancy these days. It was just run-of-the-mill horrendous.
The Blackpool Central Police Station Prisoner Sausage Machine. The baddie-processing industry at its most efficient. Twelve thousand or more bodies pushed and prodded through every year with no let-up for the police, the courts, the duty solicitors. The wheels of justice grinding inexorably on and on: churning out files, charge forms, bail forms, fingerprint forms, descriptive forms to infinity, decimating South American rain forests by the acre. One of the busiest custody offices in the country. A well-oiled, finely tuned mangle of humanity. Each detained person bringing in his or her own story, sometimes tragedy. Most were from backgrounds where the descent into crime was inevitable.
Henry pushed his way through the prisoners and their escorts and picked up the ‘live’ custody binder, which held the records of all the prisoners currently in cells. He found a quiet space — as if — and settled himself down to read every record, ensuring they were as up to date and accurate as they could be. Too many officers had fallen foul of wily solicitors by not ensuring the forms were filled in correctly. Henry had almost lost his job once for adopting a cavalier attitude to filling in custody records. It had been a salutary lesson.
As satisfied as he could be that everything was OK, he decided on a walk round the cell complex to visit all the inmates. Fifteen people were locked up. Most were fast asleep. One drunk was constantly kicking his cell door, bawling obscenities. Henry paused for a few extra seconds to peer through the spyhole into Kit Nevison’s cell. The big man was soundly sleeping, snoring loudly.
Once the male side had been done, Henry moved through the reception area, across to the female block. Only the one female was in custody, the one he had arrested.
As soon as Henry stepped into the corridor, he knew something was amiss. His sixth sense kicked in. He stiffened. The air did not smell right or feel right. The hairs on the back of his neck crawled like tiny insects. Then his eyes zoomed onto the bootlace protruding under the sliding door hatch of the girl’s cell. It was looped down and pulled up tight over the hatch-locking mechanism, basically a spring-loaded latch, which gave it the necessary purchase, then back up through the gap between the hatch and the cell door, a gap which, in an ideal world, should have been non-existent, but which had appeared over the years as the door had aged and the steel had buckled slightly from constant use. It was a gap which many prisoners in many other similar situations, intent on taking their own lives, had used to good advantage to achieve their aim.
Henry knew immediately that by fastening the bootlace on the inspection hatch, the girl was now hanging by the neck on the other side of the door.
‘Oh God,’ he muttered, dashing to the cell door. He attempted to open the hatch, but the girl’s dead weight on the other side made it impossible for him to move the latch. He cursed again and put his eye to the spyhole. By standing on tiptoe and looking down he could just see the dark shape of a pair of legs splayed out on the other side of the door.
He had to act fast to save her — if she wasn’t already dead — and until he knew otherwise he had to assume life was still there. He kept his voice calm but urgent as he spoke into his radio.
‘Inspector, get the custody officer to come to the female cells immediately with his keys and the ligature scissors, and call an ambulance please. There’s an attempt suicide in here — a hanging.’
‘Received.’
Henry assessed what he might be able to do in the intervening seconds before help arrived.
He had seen this before.
The bootlace somehow smuggled into the cell, long enough to be wrapped around any suitable object and then around the neck. They did not hang themselves in the true sense of the word, just put the makeshift noose around their necks and leaned into it, letting the whole body go limp and heavy, cutting the blood supply to the brain, stopping breathing. Dying quickly. Very quickly. He knew that if a prisoner was desperate enough, they would succeed in their morbid endeavour. He also knew from research done into the subject of deaths in police custody, a point nine inches above ground was sufficiently high to achieve the objective.
But how had she managed to sneak the lace into her cell? Henry was already preparing to ask tough questions. She’d been strip searched. Henry knew she had. She was wearing a paper suit. Who the fuck hadn’t done their job properly?
Henry could not even manage to slide his fingers between the bootlace and the door. He banged the wall and hopped with frustration.
‘Where the fuck are you?’ he yelled out loud.
There was the sound of running footsteps, keys jangling, shouts. The custody officer came racing in, the gaoler at his heels. Henry stood back and allowed him to get straight to the door. No explanations were necessary. Henry was considering the ramifications of a death in custody and all the things that might result from it: the protracted investigation; the awkward questions; the Police Complaints Authority; inquests; discipline, possibly criminal proceedings; maybe demotions or job losses. Shit, he thought. The implications were terrifying. Not on my first night as a uniformed inspector, he prayed, do not be dead, you bitch.
The big key went in, turned and the heavy brass lock opened. The sergeant heaved the door outwards with difficulty, the girl’s weight on the other side of it making it hard to open.
There she was, legs akimbo. The weight of her body being held by the bootlace which was cutting deep into the soft flesh of her neck. Bootlace, Henry thought again. Where did that come from? Her head lolled forwards, her chin almost on her chest, purple tongue lolling out obscenely. Spittle bubbled out of the corners of her mouth, snot hung from her nose. The eyes bulged out of their sockets. Her skin was tinged blue.
She looked dead.
The custody sergeant inserted the flat-edge ligature scissors, specially designed to slide between skin and ligature, underneath the bootlace. The gaoler went on one knee and took the girl’s weight. The scissors snipped. She sagged and fell loosely against the gaoler’s hands. He eased her gently to the floor.
The severed bootlace hung from the door hatch, swinging from side to side.
‘Leave it where it is for now,’ Henry instructed the sergeant, thinking about preservation of evidence. If the girl was dead, which seemed pretty likely looking at her, Henry would start from the premise that he was dealing with a murder, which was standard practice at all sudden or unusual deaths, even though this had happened in a police establishment and it was a highly unlikely scenario. When murder was ruled out, only then would he move onto suicide. Murder first, other causes second. It was his golden rule.
The gaoler was kneeling over her, breathing heavily from the exertion of running. His first and second fingers prodded her neck for signs of a pulse.
‘Can’t find a thing,’ he said.
‘Fuck, fuck,’ growled the custody sergeant. He too could see the bleakness of the future. After all, this was his custody office. He would have a lot of difficult questions to answer.
‘Right,’ Henry said. ‘Try to resuscitate.’
The gaoler looked up at him as if he was barmy. ‘She’s dead, boss.’
‘Not until a quack says so,’ Henry insisted. ‘Let’s get on with it.’ He tapped the sergeant on the shoulder. ‘You do the heart, I’ll do the lungs. We keep at it until the paramedics arrive.’